Next City

We're revisiting a favorite episode from the archive to celebrate Next City's Winter Film Festival, this year's series: "Power and Place."What happens when a Brooklyn neighborhood takes on deep-pocketed developers? In this episode, we talk to the directors of "Emergent City" and the organizers who fought to preserve Sunset Park’s future.“Emergent City” (emergentcitydoc.com) documents the 10-year s...

Join Matthew Jordan-Miller Kenyatta and artist Shawn Theodore for PYRAMID CLUB: 1937—2035, a reimagining of the legendary North Philadelphia social club as a blueprint for today’s North Broad renaissance. Together, they’ll explore how Afrofuturist and arts-driven approaches can turn scarcity into abundance while centering Black joy and cultural heritage. 

So much depends on your ZIP code, even children’s access to play. But an effort is growing to ensure the playground is where all kids can have fun, learn and heal.“It's where they learn, it's where they build connection, it's where they really establish their identity as a human being in this world,” says Lysa Ratliff, CEO for KABOOM! “And yet, there's extreme disparities in our parks and our scho...

Culture is often treated as a niche area but is actually integral to the successful design and adoption of other areas of urban planning and policy. Hear how cities like Atlanta, Boston, Seattle and Baltimore are embedding cultural approaches into planning, policy, and recovery efforts.

Nonprofits often struggle to prove their impact, but the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) is showing how a rigorous research partnership can help grassroots programs scale and win support. This sponsored episode explores examples of nonprofits and city governments collaborating with LEO researchers at the University of Notre Dame to identify what works, why it works, and how the...

Even as billions in federal clean energy funding sit trapped in legal limbo, community lenders are determined to keep the green transition alive. This episode of Next City explores how to press forward with the clean-energy transition despite a federal freeze on the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. Next City’s senior economic justice correspondent Oscar Perry Abello speaks with Neda Arab...

Communities need spaces for art; you can't support art without supporting artists. We're talking with three leaders working on alternative models for sustainability.

Charles T. Brown, author of "Arrested Mobility," discusses why mobility is not afforded in the same way to everyone – and the dire cost of this inequity.

New York was once the world’s oyster capital. The director of a new feature-length impressionist hybrid documentary, "Holding Back the Tide," traces the city’s many life cycles with the oyster as her main character. Emily Packer follows environmentalists restoring oysters to the harbor, while examining the oyster not only as entangled with nature, but also as a queer icon, with much to teach about...

The documentary "Razing Liberty Square” shows what happens in Miami as sea levels rise and the rich move inland, encroaching on residents of the Liberty Square public housing project. The film tells the story of a historically Black community faced with a $300-million-dollar “revitalization” of their neighborhood. In this episode, hear from a resident and climate activist, Valencia Gunder, who say...

Black power is more than symbolic. It’s a measurable reality tied to things like ownership, investment in neighborhoods, and—ultimately—life expectancy. In this episode with the authors of two new books—“The Black Power Scorecard” and “The Banks We Deserve”—Andre Perry and Oscar Perry Abello talk about systems that have historically failed communities of color and what it will take to build lastin...

This week, we’re revisiting an episode we released earlier this year, all about Lexington, Kentucky — a city where collaboration and creativity are transforming challenges into opportunities. In this episode, we highlighted how Lexington’s leaders are finding ways to foster nonpartisanship, boost civic engagement, and narrow the racial wealth gap. We’re bringing this episode back now because it of...

The Trust for Public Land’s ParkScore® Index each year ranks the 100 largest U.S. cities on factors such as park access, investment, and equity. In this sponsored episode, we explore how cities have turned their ParkScore data into action—investing in green spaces to spark civic engagement and foster a genuine sense of belonging.

Community development in America is at a pivotal moment. Long-standing federal programs that fuel homeownership, support small businesses, and promote neighborhood revitalization—especially in communities of color—are now under threat. But on today's sponsored episode, we’ll hear how the people working on the front lines of equitable development are adapting, organizing, and doubling down on their...

This week, we’re trying something new: instead of our usual Next City episode, we’re sharing the pilot for “Not My Narrative,” an experimental mini-series that not only debunks harmful myths holding back progress but also elevates the counter-narratives driving positive momentum. In this debut episode of Not My Narrative, Host Lucas Grindley, Executive Director of Next City, takes listeners on an...

In the U.S., approximately 3.6 million households are threatened by eviction each year, and for many, the consequences last long after the eviction itself. Even if individuals avoid losing their homes, eviction records can prevent them from securing future housing. This happens because landlords use tools that screen the rental, credit, employment, income and criminal histories of tenants—often wi...

Back in the 1980s, there were more than 200 lesbian bars across the United States. By 2022, that number had shrunk to 21. This year, a group of friends in Brooklyn joined a recent resurgence of such queer spaces—and set it up as a worker-owned coop, to boot. Boyfriend Co-op is part cocktail bar, part coffee shop, part workspace. Designed to feel like “a queer living room,” it’s all about ethical,...

When fires swept through the wealthy L.A. enclave known as the Pacific Palisades, the images were chaotic: cars abandoned on Sunset Boulevard, people fleeing on foot. A bulldozer had to plow through the traffic just so firefighters could reach the flames. Planners and researchers recognize the dangers of evacuating thousands at a moment’s notice and argue that our streets urgently need to be redes...

When the Eaton Fire tore through the Altadena neighborhood in January, many homes were lost. But also at risk was history, culture and community in a neighborhood known for its uniquely high Black homeownership rate. In the aftermath, as displaced residents were overwhelmed, private investors have swooped in, offering to buy up scorched lots for eye-popping amounts of cash. It's Altadena versus di...

In our fifth-ever episode of the Next City podcast, we spoke to Jason Foster of Destination Crenshaw, a monument to Black Los Angeles that had just broken ground. Four years later, that 1.3-mile monument to Black culture—set to be the largest Black public art project in America—has started transforming the city's Crenshaw corridor. Construction is nearly complete on Sankofa Park, the project's “cr...

The CDFI Fund is a proven driver of affordable housing in every state—red and blue alike. But now, this vital source of financing is at risk of federal cuts. In this episode, we highlight a project in Nashville, Tennessee, made possible by BlueHub Capital, a community development financial institution based in Massachusetts. In today's episode, we speak to Oscar Perry Abello, the author of "The Ba...

When wildfires hit Los Angeles in January, people did what they always do in a crisis: They stepped in to help. And many of them donated clothes. Lots and lots of clothes. Volunteers were quickly overwhelmed as bags of clothes began piling up at relief centers.“What happens is the help that's being offered actually clogs the ability for those cities and the community to help, because it's a mismat...

Five years after the start of the COVID pandemic, we revisit journals from the nurses who lived through it. The stories are part of a first draft of history being remembered by the official Manhattan Borough Historian in his new book on New York’s essential workers, “When the City Stopped: Stories from New York's Essential Workers.” 

Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson is the former chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, having resigned when President Trump took office. She talks about how the arts are shaping urban policy, including by “healing, bridging and thriving” in communities. 

In this sponsored podcast episode with Results for America, learn how Santa Clara County helped thousands of Californians stay housed. In 2024, homelessness surged by 18% nationwide, with 23 out of every 10,000 people living on the streets or in shelters. The costs of homelessness are enormous – not just to the health and well-being of those experiencing it, but also to taxpayers, as governments s...